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Back in the 60's the government implemented a system that they called "The Big Ear" (cute isn't it). This system was set up domesticly to sample every long distance phone call made in the USA. They wanted to include all phone calls, but to be able to, all the phone companies would have to use electronic switching--which only AT&T Longlines was using at that time. It used a keyword flag system, where a certain keyword would flag a human operater. This operater would then pull the recorded tape of that call and listnen to it.
They were using Cray Supercooled systems (mainframes) that were state of the art, at that time. But their voice recognition support was faulty, and only 5-6% of the flagged calls actually contained any of the key words they were scanning for. This was out of 100 of thousands flagged calls per day.
What became of this project, I have no idea. I was only assigned to a detached arm of this project for 3 months, and haven't found anything relavent to this since.
moxnix

\"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Champagne in one hand - strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO HOO - What a Ride!\"
Author Unknown

slarty im well aware that radio trianglation in a simple and old fashion process, ive used it myself in robotics projects and its not difficult,

i was only saying that once that had a match this is how they moved in on the person, instead of falsely going after anyone with a mobile phone.

they dont employ thousands of individuals to monitor comms, its all done via computer, im sure there will be some form of human intevention depending on the serverity of the call/email/fax or whatever, super computers will just flag up some concern at certain individuals

Originally posted here by blue_wolf I hear you Steve.
But what about for the telephone do you think that it is right and moral. That the government can envade our privacy anytime they want.??

Cheers....Blue Wolf

What I think is right or moral is irrelevant. The fact remains that the 'government' has the capability to do these things and even if they require a Judge to okay it or otherwise, the best policy is to assume that you are being monitored all the time, but not worry about it.

My view, albeit simplistic, is that if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you've nothing to worry about.

The problem occurs if the 'government' is/becomes oppressive and they decide they will persecute people for saying, for example, that they think that the evidence for going to war recently is a load of old drivel.

So do we trust our governments?

What could be done about the telephones, have your answer machine read out the keyowrd list before accepting a message?

Or use a Jedi Mind Trick *waves hand* These aren't the conversations you're looking for. :jedi:

Val, Its interesting you say that. Myself and some others have thought about setting up such a system that will mail out "fake" mails to specified zombie e-mail accounts, just to see what happens. If you'd be interested in discussing it more, you know where to find me.

I agree. I only email encrypted messages when the person recieving it wants it encrypted. I use a blowfish 448bit encryption system but i have no problems in the concept that some government agency has found a 'backdoor' password cracking tool or mathematical equation that can quickly and efficiently decrypt messages.

Gotta remember that military and government agencies get to use the shiny new stuff years before we do, who knows; i've read about quantum processors based on qubits that can VERY quickyl perform lots and lots of mathematical equations, who's to say they aren't using a BETA system using this technology to decrypt emails classed as high risk? or from a known terrorist?

The best security people out there are the people you don't hear about, the best technologies out there are the one's most people don't know about... The gonverment uses this fact to great use, probably running tools capable of things far in advance of our perception of the possible.

Before the patriot act the NSA had a specific presidential order that was taken very seriously. DO NOT SPY on the American Public. This was a direct result of the problems and concerns about government black lists at the building of the cold war and continuing on through the present time (1990s). It was gospel.

Morality is a measurement of a society’ ideals for what is right and wrong. It’s based on a lot of “stuff”. Stuff being a loosely defined term for every single influence, internal and external that defines “us”. Based on an American concept of a constitutional government built on checks and balances that attempts to promote a democracy that is free from the possibility of a single corrupt individual becoming a tyrant; based on that, using the military to gather covert information on individuals that are citizens of the very same state is immoral. Too much power is being consolidated into a single position at the cost of “preventing” terrorism. I say that if the price is our freedom and comfort in knowing that we are a free people, then all those who died in the world trade center, died in vain.

West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

This may be a bit technical, but I was discussing the idea with xmaddness, so thats what got my brain moving. Yes you could try stuffing the keyword list to carnivore/omnivore in an email header, subject line, or even the body. The problem with this is that any programmer with 1/8 of a brain will make sure any traffic containing 100% of the keyword list will be either deleted, or passed on to a holding place to be reviewed. With that in mind, the range in which messages are actually flagged is unknown, so it could be the 10-35% range, 5-60% or anywhere inbetween. With that said, the system still has to analyze the packets and decide what to do with them, so any message containing a chunk of keywords would have to be checked, which takes away system resources, slowing down the overall process of monitoring email traffic. While that might seem like a good idea, I'm sure giving the current political climate, it could be construted as a Denial of Service attack against a government system, and therefore obstruction of justice. Definately not something I would want to get caught up in.